


Traditions

by grecianviolet



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Family, lokane - Freeform, lokaneweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28380366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grecianviolet/pseuds/grecianviolet
Summary: While Jane tries hard to learn the cultural norms of Asgard, Loki shares a more important tradition. Written for Lokane Week. ONESHOT.
Relationships: Jane Foster/Loki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39
Collections: Lokane Week Holiday Celebration 2020





	Traditions

**Traditions**

Written for Lokane Week 2020

Prompt: Jólabókaflóð

"Enough."

Loki's hand descended into her vision and slammed down on the open page, where Jane had been trying to absorb the ancient words written there about proper feast-behavior, written eons ago by a travelling diplomat from Nidavellir. It was the closest she had been able to find to a book of etiquette in Asgard's sprawling library, and that she discovered it at _all_ was an accident, considering the librarians had tilted their heads with superior smiles—each and every one—when she asked whether there was some kind of "Miss Manners" guide for Asgard.

Not that she used that exact reference, but still. She had done her best to get the meaning across.

"Hey!" she squawked, blinking up at him. "Could you not? I haven't even gotten to the part about toasting yet."

"Will you not believe me when I say your studies are useless?" he sighed. Boredom and Loki were uneasy partners at the best of times, and he had been prowling around her for the last half-hour, teasing and wheedling for her to pay attention to him. "I told you how it will be: everyone will be drunk before the roast arrives, we will eat too much to be comfortable, and then there will be songs and stories, during which you will only be required to smile and accept every ludicrous tale anyone spins for you. Such an event requires no preparation."

" _You_ think so because you grew up here. But _I_ didn't, if you'll remember. Maybe there's some unspoken rule that I'll break if I ask the wrong question," she tugged at the book under his palm, but there was no give in his grip. Eventually she gave up and poked him in the side. "This is our first holiday with your family. I want everything to go right."

"Whether things 'go right' or not is hardly up to us," Loki's expression darkened, a tense muscle in his jaw leaping, "It is at Odin's discretion whether we shall be accepted or no. And as I mentioned before we arrived, as a wayward son and his mortal wife—a wife who was once beloved of his other, _favored_ son, by the by—we will likely not gain the All-Father's approval, no matter how well we both behave. So why not ease your mind," he pulled her to her feet, nuzzling at her temple, "and forget all this? There is a full day until the feast, and I know of far more pleasant ways to spend the hours."

Unwilling as she was, Jane couldn't help but lean closer into Loki's warmth, standing on tiptoes to tuck herself into the notch of his shoulder. Breathing him in, her eyes fluttered shut as she murmured, "'Forget all this', huh? What do you suggest we do then?"

His body tensed beneath hers, and she felt him smile into her skin. "I _had_ certain plans, but I suppose I could alter them."

"Hmm, I _bet_ you had plans," she slid her hands around his back, fingertips grazing over the leather and silk of his tunic. _This_ was why he had a lifetime ban from her lab during official working hours—he was far too dangerous an influence. Although 'influence' was a very mild word; 'distraction' was more accurate. Already Jane couldn't remember whether the ranking guest or the host sat first, and that was the sort of information it was vital to remember. Then—

"Wait, actually…what plans?" she asked, drawing back and eying him. "I thought the only thing you wanted from this week was for it to end as quickly as possible."

"True. But there are one or two traditions that I had in mind to teach you."

She huffed. "Then why didn't you say? I've been killing myself trying to figure out your traditions, and you've been less than helpful about the whole process," Jane pushed at the book, laughing as it tumbled off the table. "I'd much rather learn from you, you know."

She could _see_ the war on his face as he struggled between making an inappropriate innuendo—his native language at the worst times—and actual sincerity. She braced herself for the former, preparing to groan in half-amused disgust, and was shocked when instead Loki took her by the hand and tugged her forward.

"Where are we going? Loki, I'm in my _pajamas_ ," she hissed once they were through their bedroom door and in the hallway. The stationed guards, disciplined though they were, ran bemused eyes over her blue flannel sleep set and fluffy white socks. Her exposed knees felt _very_ scandalous in Asgard's gilded halls, where everyone, at all times, wore more layers than a wedding cake.

"It is late, and we are going somewhere not many venture. I promise," he softened, seeing the real distress on her face, "I will hide you if we run across anyone important."

"All right," she grumbled, padding along at his side, more to conceal herself in his silhouette than for any comfort. This midnight dash was not in any of _her_ plans.

They jogged through the Palace's towering halls, Loki making a game of it as he led her around pillars and dramatically checked corners before swinging her around them. Jane found herself laughing long before the corridors started looking familiar again.

"Isn't this the way to the library?" she whispered, "I'm sure I recognize that statue of the frowning gorilla."

"The statue of Bor, you mean," Loki paused, considering, "No, you are right. Far more like a gorilla. But yes, we are going to the library. Hence why I said there would be no one there."

"What about the librarians?"

"All off-duty at this time of night," he drew her even with the enormous fretwork doors of the library, through which she could see the enormous shelves filled with thousands upon thousands of books and scrolls, their leather covers gleaming like dull jewels in the floating, warm, eternally-burning candlelight. Loki passed his hands once, twice, over the elaborate lock and it shimmered under his hands. Moving swiftly, he tugged the door open and pushed her through, sliding through himself just before the metal shivered back into reality again.

Jane bit her lip, caught between an urge to run wild in the empty library and a gnawing apprehension. "Are we going to be in trouble if anyone catches us?"

"Oh, indeed. Punishment for breaking into the library is most severe. They may go so far as to send us to bed without supper," Loki grinned at her indignation, "Such a worrier, Jane! Come, there is something I want to show you."

She followed his lead, deeper into the library than even she had been that afternoon, so deep into the stacks that even the artificial candles struggled to illuminate their way through the forest of books. Here, the smell of leather was heady and rich; Jane found herself breathing deeply, almost like taking the history of the great room into her lungs with every inhalation.

Somehow the smell of a library was the same, no matter what world it was on, and each time Jane set foot in one, she remembered her undergrad days at CalTech, pouring over microfiche star charts for her research projects and feeling like a pioneering explorer, sailing through the vast expanses of the galaxy. Or even older memories of childhood, like when her parents had taken her to their town's little library on a Saturday morning to stock up on books for the week, and she had wandered through the shelves like an archeologist discovering buried treasure.

Leather, mold, ink, paper, glue…she sniffed and sighed. What a comforting aroma.

"Here we are," at the end of their winding path through the labyrinthine shelves, Loki phased them through another doorway where the locks seemed far more impressive. At Jane's hesitation, he smiled, "I learned my way around these when I was a child. I'm half-convinced the head librarian knew of it yet let me get away with it anyway. She understood more than anyone my desire for knowledge."

"Then why haven't we just asked her permission?"

"Because some of these tomes contain rather…incendiary materials. My father would not be pleased if he knew I had access to them. And she would be obliged to report even my request to see them."

For the first time, Jane really stood firm as he tried to hustle her along. "I don't like this. Loki…" she swallowed, "You're not just using me as a pretext to get your hands on something you shouldn't, are you?"

He stopped dead. "Jane," he paused, drawing in a quiet breath, "you are not wrong to distrust me. The fact that you do so rarely is a minor miracle. But in this case, I am not trying to deceive you. There is a book here that, while valuable beyond measure, is not dangerous. It is that book I want you to see. Would you rather leave?"

She shifted her weight, dragging her socked feet across the floor. There _was_ something fun about running around the castle at night, and Odin _had_ been kind of a dick to them ever since they'd arrived. Why was she so concerned about his opinion, anyway?

"No," she answered, at last, "I trust you."

In the darkness, Loki's smile was a beam of light. She let him take her hand again and lead her farther into the room.

"What book?"

"One of the oldest in Asgard," his voice sank, reverent, as he embarked on the story, "One which some suspect was made just after the origin of the universe, when stars were still hurtling across space and massive nebulae were forming the first constellations. The book is not only a chronicle of the birth of Yggdrasil, it's a work of art. A moving manuscript."

"Moving?" Jane watched as Loki slid a massive volume, coated in blue leather and embossed with silver knotwork, from the shelf. He laid it on a reading stand adjusted for her height and beckoned her closer. "Like…a pop-up book?"

He laughed, delicately running his finger under the front cover, "Better you see it yourself than I try to explain."

Jane gasped as he lifted the cover, skin rising with goosebumps as she looked at the richly illuminated pages. The images were stylized, almost like mosaics—she could see each line, each blot of ink—but they also _moved_ , in little repetitive motions, tableaus of what the galaxy looked like mere moments after its formation.

Celestial bodies slowly oozed across the page, trailing ink-clouds of multicolored dust behind them as stars flashed into existence in explosions of gold-foil and then collapsed back inwards to do it all again. A page of pure black nonetheless pulsed with some unseen heat rising from the newly-born universe.

Jane stared at the first two pages for…she had no idea. Time didn't mean anything when she was looking at the book. Two pages, and she could stare at them for hours.

"Can I?"

"It won't break," he replied, softly, showing her how to run her finger gently under one page before flipping it over. "I should know. I spent many hours poring over this volume as a boy."

"When you broke in, you mean?" Jane spoke without taking her eyes off a magnificent gas giant congealing in a whirl of brilliant stripes of vermillion, scarlet, and amber.

"To my shame, I had no idea this room was even here until my mother showed me. Frigga brought me here to celebrate my tenth Jólabókaflóð."

At _that_ she did look around. "Your tenth what?" Trying to repeat it just resulted in a string of nonsensical syllables.

"Jólabókaflóð. It's a tradition we have wherein, each year, we share a favorite book with another. Admittedly it is not a tradition we often celebrated. My brother and father do not care to read for pleasure, so my mother had no one but me to share her passion with."

Loki turned a page, tracing a protostar cluster with a light finger. "She took me here at midnight and we read through the whole thing together, finishing only with the dawn. She told me stories all the while of the ancient heroes of all Yggdrasil's realms. Later, when I tried to sneak back in, I saw that the wards had been altered. She left me my own key, so to speak. By rights, my magic should not have been enough to break the lock without the whole Palace finding me. She never mentioned it, and I did not speak of it for fear she would close it again, but I knew…"

Throwing her arms around his middle, Jane squeezed until her muscles ached. The story, the book, Loki's soft, fragile voice…all were gifts more precious to her than the many he had showered on her for Hanukkah, days before. This experience was a window into his past, as well as a glimpse of the similarities that tied them together, deeper than bonds of marriage could do.

Clearing her throat and hoping he wouldn't see the teary sheen in her eyes, Jane pulled back. "My dad was the one who introduced me to the library. He always said it was his favorite place on Earth. When I was a kid, the internet wasn't really a thing, so the next best thing for a curious kid was a good set of encyclopedias. We used to sit in the stacks, each with our own volume, pointing out neat facts to each other. He'd help me with all the difficult words. When he died…" she took a breath, pushing on, "I went back to the library after the funeral. They didn't have the encyclopedias anymore, but I sat in the same row and—it's kind of silly—scrolled through Wikipedia. It was the closest I could get to him, you know?"

She looked up at him then, sniffling, smiling. "Will you tell me some of the stories your mom told you?"

Loki dropped a kiss on her lips. "Gladly."


End file.
